


for the soul

by jollypuppet



Category: Free!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Psychic Bond, Schmoop, Sickfic, take that last tag with a grain of salt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 22:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jollypuppet/pseuds/jollypuppet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Free! kink meme. Makoto gets sick and loses his voice, and Haruka speaks for him for once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for the soul

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, hey. I really should stop taking such long breaks between writing things, and I promise I'm gonna try to do better in the future. But either way, here, have some cute swimming boys being cute.
> 
> Originally from [this](http://iwatobiswimclub.dreamwidth.org/1476.html?thread=885956#cmt885956) post on the Free! kink meme.

Neither of them like studying, but they like it even less when they have to do it alone, so Makoto normally ends up at Haruka's house whenever they have a particularly daunting exam looming over them. They get... a good amount done, they go over flash cards and then play video games and then fall asleep on top of one another on the living room floor, until Makoto wakes up in the middle of the night and carries Haruka up to the bedroom (the guy sleeps like a rock, no surprise there.) Makoto can only stay awake for long enough to kiss his boyfriend's forehead before passing out himself.

But this time, it's different. Haruka can sense it the minute Makoto walks through his front door, shielding his head from the rain with his schoolbag, and smiles that sheepish grin he reserves for his friends. 

“Sorry I'm late.” Makoto offers, and Haruka hears it – his voice is oddly deeper and quieter than it normally is, and he narrows his eyes. Makoto walks further inside and closes the door behind him, toeing his shoes off in the process, until Haruka roughly shoves his shoulder and turns his head. “Wha–”

“Quiet.” Haruka says without much force, but his hand comes up to slide underneath Makoto's bangs, rests his knuckles against Makoto's forehead, and his friend shivers. “You're warm.”

“Or,” Makoto says, his eyes sliding shut as he waits for Haruka to finish, “your hands are just really cold. But they feel great, so there's that.”

“My hands aren't cold.”

“Have you ever _felt_ your hands, Haru?” Makoto answers with a cheeky little smile. “Because in my _vast_ experience of being Nanase Haruka's professional hand-holder, I'd say your hands are pretty cold.”

Haruka lets his hand drop. “You make me sound like a toddler.” 

“No, you're just cute.” 

Makoto walks further in and he pecks Haruka on the lips – very gently, much gentler than Haruka is used to, actually. Makoto's the more affectionate of the two of them (though Haruka has his own streak, don't get him wrong) and his kisses very rarely last less than at least two seconds. They're normally only that quick when they're in front of friends or family. Haruka's suspicion begins to burn a little brighter, but he keeps his mouth shut.

They settle into their routine easily, with Haruka rummaging through the pantry for snacks and Makoto starting some tea, and it's quiet in his kitchen, the only sound coming from the rain pattering against the dark windowpane, reverberating and filling the empty space between them with calming ambiance. And _that_ , of course, is when it happens.

Haruka likes to call it _The Sneeze._

It's no ordinary sneeze, it's a stealth sneeze, an assassin sneeze. The Sneeze is hard to pick out in the wild, but with intimate knowledge of Tachibana Makoto and his typical habits gleaned from the majority of his life, Haruka's an expert on The Sneeze. It echoes in his eardrums whenever he hears it.

It's just this cute little clipped sound that Makoto tries to hide in the crook of his elbow.

Haruka whips around, a bag of chips falling to the floor behind him. “You're _sick_ , you idiot.”

Makoto jumps a bit at the accusation. “What? N-No, I'm not sick, Haru, c'mon. I just...” He trails off and his eyes wander around the room. “I just have allergies!” He recreates the sound of The Sneeze in jest, as if joking about all the invisible dust in Haruka's kitchen, but what he gets for his efforts is another real sneeze – much less stealthy, much less cute. It's kind of wet sounding, actually, and it shakes Makoto's frame violently. 

Haruka sighs and approaches him again, gently turning Makoto's face up by his chin. He sniffles quietly, and his face is a little more red than it was when he walked in. “Are you trying to get me sick or what?” Haruka grumbles and sets his hand against Makoto's forehead again – he's even warmer now.

Green eyes widen a bit at that, and Makoto's frown only deepens, and damn him if his boyfriend doesn't look like a wet puppy. “I would never want you to get sick, Haru, you know that.” He averts his eyes sheepishly. “I didn't want you to worry, is all.” There's a rumble to his voice that Haruka's not used to, a sick sound that rattles from deep in his throat, and Haruka doesn't like it.

So he sighs, and he points in the direction of the living room. “On the couch. _Now._ ” Makoto opens his mouth to protest, but Haruka cuts him off. “I know how to make tea, Makoto, I said get on the couch.”

Makoto's shoulders slump, but he grins, just a little. “You're cute when you're bossy, Haru.” Haruka gives him a pointed look and he laughs quietly, trying his best not to further disturb his throat, and shuffles in the direction of the living room. Haruka doesn't turn around again until he hears the tell-tale sound of a heavy body slumping against his couch.

The tea finishes off quickly enough, and Haruka microwaves some soup, filling the kitchen with a warmth, a rich smell that permeates the air. He brings the tea and soup into the living room and flops down on the floor in front of the couch. He sets the soup on the table in front of him and hands the cup of tea to Makoto, who has taken to squinting at the lights above his head like they're the most confusing thing he's ever seen. “You should sit up when you drink, so you don't choke.”

“You have impeccable bedside manner, Haru.” Makoto says in jest, and the smile on his face suggests it's a jab in good nature. Haruka doesn't respond, and instead brings his hand up to Makoto's forehead again, and he leans forward.

This time, he lets his hand slip down to lightly cradle Makoto's cheek. “I need to get you some medicine for that fever.” he mumbles. “I doubt it'll go down on its own. Do you have your glasses? You should probably take out your contacts, just in case you fall asleep or something.”

Makoto nuzzles his palm, and if Haruka lets him, then he's never going to speak of it. “I'll do that.” It doesn't really sound like any sort of affirmation to Haruka's request, more like a general acquiescence to Haruka's care, and it's the first thing that makes Haruka smile that afternoon.

They watch TV together, with Makoto sprawled out on the couch and Haruka on the floor, and they vaguely go over flash cards, but it's hard to pay attention. Haruka eventually turns the television off and lets the room sink into darkness, and they talk late into the night, watching the time tick away on Haruka's cell phone until, eventually, it's Sunday. 

“Do you need anything?” Haruka asks quietly, his eyes long since adjusted to the darkness. “Water or something?” 

He gets no response, only the deep, rasped breathing coming from Makoto, slumped and relaxed on the sofa, unconscious. He must have nodded off somewhere in the middle of their conversation, drained by his cold, and maybe Haruka would be irked if he didn't feel so much for the guy. So he stands up, and he works the kinks out of his legs and hips, stretches out his sore back. He bends down to straighten out Makoto's blanket and to slip the glasses off of his face, carefully folding them and setting them on the table.

He leans down one last time and kisses Makoto on the forehead, lingering for a moment and letting his hand slide idly through his boyfriend's hair. He listens to Makoto breathe, content in the quiet of his living room.

Then, after a few minutes, or maybe an hour, or maybe a year, he's not sure, he stands up and goes upstairs.

–

Haruka's making another pot of tea when Makoto wakes up, but he doesn't actually _know_ that Makoto's awake for another twenty minutes or so. 

He walks into the living room quietly, stepping carefully toward the sofa and setting the drinks on the table, and when he spares a look at Makoto, he's surprised to find him squinting at the dark ceiling like it said something that offended him.

“How long have you been awake?” Haruka asks, crossing his legs on the floor. Makoto doesn't answer, but he blinks hard and looks at Haruka, then cracks a rather pained smile at him.

He still doesn't offer any sort of reply, though. Haruka cocks an eyebrow. “Longer than me?”

Makoto shakes his head.

“Did you wake up while I was in the kitchen?”

He nods, then.

“You lost your voice, didn't you?”

There's that pained smile again, and a muscle in Makoto's face twitches suddenly, leading to a rather violent sounding sneeze ripping from him, almost propelling him forward enough to be completely sitting up. There's no sound of his voice in the sneeze, just a raw, damaged sound like something ratting around inside a cage. 

He ends up hunched over a bit, sniffling pathetically, and Haruka rubs his back in a way that he hopes is soothing. When Makoto breathes in, he can practically feel the hitches in his chest under his hand. “I'm glad we don't have school, then.” he says pragmatically. “Want some tea?”

Makoto shakes his head and taps his throat lightly, and Haruka nods, understanding completely.

“Right. Water.” He kisses Makoto's temple and stands up. “Let me call Nagisa and see if he can get to a drugstore.”

–

When Nagisa stops by, he's not carrying anything, cause that's Rei's job, after all. His smile is just as sunny as usual, and Rei looks like he's sucking on something particularly sour.

Nagisa blinks when he gets a look at Haruka. “You don't look sick, Haru-chan.” he says. “Why did you need cough medicine if you're not sick?”

“Stocking up?” Rei asks skeptically, raising an eyebrow, but he looks no less interested than Nagisa.

Haruka jabs a thumb over his shoulder, and it's almost funny, how Nagisa and Rei lean over simultaneously to glance into Haruka's dim living room. “It's Makoto. He caught a cold.” The twin looks of concern that fall on their faces would also be pretty funny, if it wasn't for the fact that Makoto is _sick_. As if on cue, a thick hacking sound erupts from the living room, and Nagisa pouts.

“Mako-chan never gets sick!”

A limp hand flaps over the back of the couch and Haruka blinks.

“He says hello.” he translates, before nodding his head. “Come on in.”

Nagisa prances in and goes straight for the living room to say hello to Makoto while Rei stays behind and leaves his bundles on the kitchen table, rubbing at the red marks on his wrists where their weight was bearing down on him. 

Nagisa peers over the side of the couch and quietly croons, “Mako-chan, it's me! I came to help take care of you.” Makoto squints hard at him, and he's able to quirk a little smile, his arm flopping down to shield his eyes. He makes a sound that would probably be a whine, if he had a voice, but instead comes out as an airy whistle.

“Well, if you were hot, you should have said something.” Haruka says, coming in at just the right time with a damp cloth and another glass of water. He lifts Makoto's arm to place the cloth on his forehead, which earns him a contented little sigh, and gently pushes the water into Makoto's hand. “No problem.”

Rei walks in and sits himself on the carpet, soon joined by Haruka, closest to Makoto, and Nagisa on the other. “We brought some movies, Makoto-senpai.” he says reassuringly. 

“Yeah, yeah!” Nagisa adds excitedly, “it'll be fun, like a party! Except you're sick!” It's odd how his tone hardly changes for that second bit, but Haruka pays no mind to it, choosing instead to twine his fingers with Makoto's lazily, his cool skin clashing against Makoto's warm. 

“He's glad you guys are here.” Haruka says plainly. “Though he has a headache, so try not to yell.”

Nagisa yelps a bit at that and claps his hands over his mouth, and Rei's eyebrows raise. “Wait, if he lost his voice, how do you know that he has a headache?” Makoto doesn't hear him, his head leaned back and his eyes shut against the cold of the cloth on his forehead, but Haruka looks at him as if the question's confusing.

“That's just how Mako-chan and Haru-chan are!” Nagisa explains. He presses his fingers against his temples. “They're... what's the word? Homeopathic?”

“That's medical.” Haruka mumbles.

“Do you mean telepathic?” Rei asks, and there's a smirk threatening to spread on his face. “Telepathy isn't _real_ , though, there's no way the two of them are telepathic.” He looks at Haruka. “He probably just... vaguely gestured to his head or something, right?”

Makoto grunts, and his shoulders shake a bit with aborted coughs deep in his chest before settling again. Haruka blinks and says, “I don't want you falling asleep again with them on, you could break them. There's nothing you really need to see, anyway.” Makoto whines, and Haruka pushes a stray piece of hair behind his ear. “Just listen to me, alright?”

Nagisa leans over to Rei and hisses, “ _Telepathy._ ” 

“How do you know what he's saying?” Rei asks, his voice just a hint more... well, hysterical probably isn't a _fair_ word for it. “I... what's he even _talking_ about? I hardly caught any of that.”

Haruka shrugs. “He wants his glasses so he can... look at you guys or something, I don't really know what he's getting at.” Makoto grunts. “You don't need to look at them to talk to them, you need to be able to _talk_ to talk to them, and you can't do that, so can you just let me take care of you for once?”

“They write horror movies about bonds like that.” Rei mumbles. “Or at least really bad soap operas.”

Nagisa waves his hand around in the air dismissively. “They've been like that since we were younger. Haru-chan talked even less when we were little, believe it or not, and a lot of the time, Mako-chan just spoke for him. Makes sense that it's a two-way street.” He leans forward a bit. “Isn't that right, Mako-chan?”

Makoto cracks open one eye, and Haruka says, “Yeah, basically.”

“Now was that you or him?” Rei asks, pointing his finger between the two of them, and Nagisa laughs. 

“It's a lot easier to just think of them as two parts of the same person.” he says.

–

They spend most of the day lounging around Haruka's living room and watching movies, with Nagisa and Rei talking amicably through a lot of the action and Haruka choosing to stay quiet, as usual. He never loses his grip on Makoto's hand though, and will occasionally move the cold cloth on his head or get up to soak it again, always playing with his hair a bit while he has the chance.

Somewhere in between the third and fourth movie, when dusk is starting to slowly settle and they really should all be getting home for school the next day, Nagisa bolts off, claiming that he _really_ needs to use the restroom, and Rei gets up to wash the bowl they'd been eating popcorn out of for the past few hours. 

He dries it and sets it on Haruka's counter, and is about to turn back into the living room, but stops himself. 

Haruka's sitting exactly where he was before, but his head is leaning close to Makoto's, and he can see that Makoto's eyes are half-open, tired. He's got this small smile on his face, and Rei can't hear anything, but it looks like he's mouthing his half of the conversation, and Haruka murmurs back to him occasionally. 

Even from where he is, he can see Makoto mouth _I love you_ and Haruka leans forward to kiss his forehead, lingering for a moment or two with his hand lightly pressed against Makoto's chest, deep where his sickness lies. Rei turns around, embarrassed to have accidentally witnessed something that intimate, and he just barely holds in a yelp when he finds Nagisa standing directly behind him.

Nagisa glances into the living room, and his smile is warm. “Haru-chan likes to pretend he's some big unsolvable puzzle.” he says kindly, and he winks at Rei. “I'm not sure if he knows how obvious he is when he's with Mako-chan.”

Rei furrows his brow, and he shoves his hands deep into his pockets, speaking as if he has no right to. “I think he knows.” he tells Nagisa. “I just don't think he cares.”

Nagisa hesitates, but his smile is bright when it returns to his face. “I think you're right, Rei-chan.”

–

Nagisa and Rei eventually leave the Nanase household, bidding Haruka goodbye and wishing for Makoto's recovery, and Haruka ends up calling Makoto's parents to assure them that, yes, Makoto's at his house and, no, he's not hurt, he's just a little sick. They spend so much time at each others' houses anyway that it's hardly odd for Makoto to stay the night twice in a row.

It's late when he sits himself down on the floor in front of the couch again, and Makoto blinks slowly, his eyes bleary and exhausted. He has a bit of his voice back, a cracked, quiet version of his normally soothing tone.

“I'm really sorry you had to go to all the trouble.” he struggles to get out, swallowing in the middle to prevent another coughing fit, and Haruka brushes a few stray hairs out of his eyes. 

“Makoto, you always take care of me when I go swimming too early in the year and get myself sick.” Haruka reminds him. “Just consider this me paying back one of _many_ favors.”

Makoto practically sits forward, his eyes wide. “You don't owe me anything.”

“Fine.” Haruka answers, and there's a small smile on his face now. “Then I'm just being a really good boyfriend. How's that?” 

“It's nothing new.”

“Shut up.”

It's good to see Makoto smile again, and Haruka's hand rubs soothing, vague patterns against the skin of his arm. “Your fever's gone down, so I think you might be able to make it to school tomorrow.” Makoto nods, and Haruka takes it as a cue to continue. “You can borrow some of my clothes and we'll stop by your house beforehand to grab your uniform, so long as you don't talk too much and rip your throat up again.”

“I will not be silenced!” Makoto mock-argues, and he gets a weak, shallow cough for his efforts. 

“Yeah, whatever.” Haruka tells him, and kisses his temple again. “Get some sleep.”

Makoto smiles up at him. “You've been doing that a lot, you know. Kissing my temple and forehead and stuff. It's cute, Haru.” His hand finds Haruka's and locks their fingers together loosely, and Haruka smiles down at him.

“Don't get the wrong idea. You owe me a few real ones when you're well again.” He sighs. “And here I thought I'd get to make out with my boyfriend, and suddenly, he gets himself sick. Shame on you, Makoto, _shame._ ”

“I'd be happy to oblige.” Makoto says gently, his eyes fixed on where his and Haruka's hands are locked together, and Haruka pauses, squeezing Makoto's hand. “You know I'd always be happy to oblige.”

That makes something swell in Haruka's chest, and after a moment of consideration, he sits himself back down on the carpet. “I'll stay here until you fall asleep.” he says. “Just in case you need anything.”

Makoto stares at him, his brows knitted together, but he eventually grins, and it's much closer to the warm, welcoming grin that Haruka's used to, not these damned little simpers of pain. He wants to make Makoto smile like that as much as he can, whenever he can. He kisses the back of Makoto's hand.

“Okay.” Makoto says.

It's not long until they're both asleep.


End file.
